Russians Agree To Let WADA Inspect Moscow Doping Lab

Baku, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 15th Nov, 2018 ) :The World Anti-Doping Agency announced on Thursday that Russia had agreed to allow a WADA team to make the long-awaited inspection visits to the main Russian laboratory.

"A delegation from WADA will be in the Moscow laboratory on November 28, with high hopes that the full technical team will be there to complete the work in the days after," WADA president Craig Reedie said in Baku.

The visits were one of the conditions WADA's executive committee set on September 20 when it voted to reinstate Russia's state anti-doping agency, RUSADA, paving the way for Russian athletes to return to competition across all sports, a decision which brought heavy criticism of WADA and Reedie.

WADA set a December 31 deadline for access to the Moscow lab's doping samples, in good condition, from 2011 to 2015.

WADA on Thursday responded to accusations that it had bowed to external pressure, adopting new rules of governance to strengthen its independence, though these steps were judged too timid by some of its critics.

RUSADA was initially suspended by WADA in 2016 after an independent report by Canadian law professor Richard McLaren found that more than 1,000 athletes across more than 30 sports were aided by state-sponsored doping.

Previously, negotiations over a visit had stalled as Russian authorities argued that the lab was sealed while they conducted their own forensic investigation. On Thursday they changed their stance.

"I know that, literally, a few hours before the meeting of the executive board, Russian officials contacted WADA," Yury Ganus, the RUSADA chief, told the official Russian news agency TASS.